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Letters | Hong Kong doctor’s manslaughter conviction for beauty treatment death sends chilling signal

  • Poor regulation of medical practice in Hong Kong is a recipe for disaster and has led to a situation in which trust and confidence in the integrity of all members of the medical profession is under question

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Family members of a woman who died after undergoing a procedure at DR Group’s Hong Kong Mesotherapy Centre protest outside the Legislative Council, urging the government to conduct a thorough investigation, in October 2013. Photo: K.Y. Cheng
Letters
The recent conviction of a young doctor of manslaughter by gross negligence should send a chill through the medical profession in Hong Kong (“Hong Kong doctor guilty of manslaughter after beauty treatment blunder killed client”, December 1). The arrogance and indifference of the politicians serving the medical sector and, more importantly, the regulatory body, the Medical Council of Hong Kong, has led to a situation where trust and confidence in the integrity of all members of the medical profession is under question.

Under these circumstances, the legal profession is sweeping in to ascertain criminality in a breach of medical duty of care. In a circular argument that holds no basis in clinical experience, a death following a medical intervention would be deemed to be an act of gross negligence.

There is a particular irony, however, in the DR Group case. After 20 successful cases, a tragedy occurred because of a totally unpredicted contamination of four samples. Yes, there were no measures instituted to check processed samples for contamination, which is a significant breach of good laboratory practice. Was it an omission with criminal intent, or was it an omission because of ignorance or oversight?

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A key witness for the prosecution was renowned microbiologist Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, who pointed to the lack of protocols and screening in the case. A few months later, there seemed to be no shame in him announcing a “worldwide first” contamination of a reusable blood collection tool which could have led to the death of a liver transplant patient at Queen Mary Hospital.
An investigation at Queen Mary Hospital found that a reusable blood collection tool could have led to hepatitis C virus being spread from its source, a drug addict who later died, to other patients. Photo: Winson Wong
An investigation at Queen Mary Hospital found that a reusable blood collection tool could have led to hepatitis C virus being spread from its source, a drug addict who later died, to other patients. Photo: Winson Wong
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Gross negligence manslaughter is a very troubling charge, and in the United Kingdom it was used to convict doctors caught up in a web of systematic failures of governance. The surgeon David Sellu was imprisoned in Belmarsh prison, a maximum security establishment typically used for terrorists and other dangerous people. The conviction was quashed after he had spent 15 months in prison.

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